Businesses that need additional computer processing capability may rent computers from a service provider for a period of time to perform the operations that are beyond the business's own computer capacity. Computers to perform the additional processing capability are located in grids where individual computers can be assigned to various customers for varying periods of time. These grids of computers are often referred to as “server farms,” “delivery centers,” or “hosting centers” and the computers in the grid are sometimes referred to as “production computers.”
Server farms, delivery centers, and hosting centers have a need to quickly configure production computers for customer use after a prior customer has completed using the production computers assigned to the prior customer. Configuring production computers for the next customer normally takes considerable time because one of two possible events must occur before the new customer can begin using the production computers of the prior customer. The first possible event is that the hard drive on the production computer, containing the images for the previous customer, must be manually removed and the removed hard drive must be replaced with a new hard drive containing the images for the next customer. The second possible event is that the images on the hard drive must be removed and replaced electronically with the images for the next customer.
In order to increase the efficiency of leased computer time for computers in grid server farms, delivery centers, and hosting centers, the following problems must be solved. First, the need for personnel to manually swap hard drives must be eliminated. Manually changing hard drives can take several hours resulting in production computer down time as well as time lost to errors in handling. Second, the need to reload the system software after the prior customers work is completed, if not done by manually swapping the hard drive, must be accomplished in a manner that is rapid and that also leaves no doubt concerning the integrity of the removal of the prior customer's images. More specifically, the hard drive must be completely re-written in order to preclude any chance of one customer accidentally obtaining another customer's data. Third, a method must be devised to make the production machines available almost continuously.